Words by Paul Smith (Stumped4Words)

Swapnil Gugale’s six-wicket haul steered Harborne to a convincing 159-run Birmingham Premier League Division Two win in a rain curtailed contest at Worfield.

The Indian pro ripped through the home side’s lower order to finish with the outstanding figures of 6-24 as the recently-promoted Bridgnorth-based hosts were despatched in 31 overs for 109.

Tom Payne had earlier led the way with the bat for Harborne with a fluent 88. Skipper Tom Arnold and Jimmy Clifford also contributed half-centuries as the visitors closed their rain-interrupted 55-over allocation on 258 for seven.

Following this round eight win Arnold’s team retain second position in the table five points behind pace-setting Wolverhampton and one ahead of Bromsgrove.

“Swapnil is a wily old fox,” Arnold said. “It wasn’t really his wicket but he bowled stump to stump and gave them nothing.

“We only had 34 overs to bowl them out in but because they needed to get to 160 to get some extra draw points they kept playing shots which really helped us.

“We had previously done really well to get to 270 which was well above par on the day. Tom Payne batted beautifully and he and myself had to really get our heads down and dig in for a long period as Worfield bowled really well with no luck.

“Jimmy was then able to come in and put his foot down which he did to very good effect.”

After the early losses of Gugale and Karan Bharaj, Arnold and Payne combined to good effect in a third-wicket alliance worth 75.

Arnold, who struck 11 boundaries in his 78-ball 58, then became the first of Ryan Quiney’s three victims, but this set the stage for Clifford to join Payne in adding a further 110 runs for the visitors’ fourth wicket.

Clifford found the boundary rope seven times and cleared it twice on his way to a breezy 63-ball 59 but it was Payne’s excellent 120-ball 88 which contained 13 fours that really caught the eye.

Enough time remained for James Hunt to blast an unbeaten 29 from just 24 balls which stretched Worfield’s win target to 258 – or more probably a 34-over spell to survive if they were to avoid defeat for the first time this season.

Quiney finished with 3-63 while Basit Zaman and Tom Parker claimed two wickets apiece for the hosts whose response was soon struggling at 31 for three against the visitors’ seam attack.

Opener Laurence Pickin (19) and skipper Will Cook (25) then staged a minor recovery to 64 for four before the introduction of Gugale’s off-spin sent Worfield into free-fall.

Only Joseph Arnold (14) of the home side’s bottom seven reached double-figures in the face of the Indian ace’s probing spell during which he hit the stumps four times and won two lbw decisions to clinch his team a maximum-points return with three overs remaining.

George Land, Mike Bevan and Arnold all claimed a wicket apiece for Harborne who host Lichfield next Saturday.